Disclaimer: Rob owns the VM characters, Joss the Buffy characters, me the plot and this expansion of who "Sheila Kelly" could have been.

X X X X X

I know it's a cliché, but if someone had wandered by with a feather at the moment? Could've knocked me over with it.

Not to sound too valley girl, but I was so not expecting this. It's something I remembered from science class: The act of observation changes what is being observed. My mere presence in the Buffyverse, even when I wasn't actually doing anything, had the potential to alter canon.

I was going to have to work hard to make sure that nothing did change here. There was nothing that could be improved here. The only death was Billy Fordham's, and it was inevitable, whether it happened locked in a basement club or six months from now in agony from a brain tumor. It crossed my mind to make sure the latter happened, but it crossed out just as quickly. Tempting as it was to have the son of a bitch die slowly and painfully, it wasn't my job to play judge, jury, and executioner. I am not Dirty Harry, nor was meant to be.

"Okay . . ." I said. "So what can you tell me about him?"

"He used to attend the same school Buffy did in LA."

"That's a start," I said. "What else?"

A couple of times I had to interrupt him and tell him that I wasn't interested in his emotional impressions, just the facts. That Angel didn't trust him wasn't relevant. He was right not to, of course, but he couldn't know that, and I certainly wouldn't have any reason to. Still, after five minutes I had pretty much everything Angel knew about Billy Fordham.

Which wasn't much; a brief introduction in a crowded club didn't exactly lend itself to a detailed character study. "Two things." I said.

"I can pay you," he said.

"Three things," I said. "First, I'm not going to be your proxy stalker. If I investigate Billy Fordham and don't find anything suspicious, you're on your own."

He seemed a little annoyed at the word stalker, but didn't let the annoyance enter his voice. "Fine. Second?"

"Second, why come to me?"

"I needed someone to investigate him, and that's what detectives do," he said.

"And three, $200."

He said, "I can have it for you by tomorrow." How, I wasn't sure, but I doubted he was knocking over liquor stores.

"Good. I can do a little research tonight and get back to you tomorrow morning – where will you be around lunchtime?" In the mainstream universe, Angel had stayed near Willow while she did the research. But A, Angel wasn't my friend, and B, no way in hell was Angelus potentially getting an invitation into my house.

Of course, I also knew that Angel, around lunchtime, would be somewhere out of the sunlight, but that was something else I would have no cause to know.

"I was hoping you'd be able to come up with something tonight," he said.

"I probably will -- but it's a school night and, while Dad trusts me to know my limits on when to go to bed, he's not going to want me sneaking outside, and given what time of night it is he's not going to be too fond of the idea of you coming inside, either." I had to get him that information, though.

"Meet me in the school library at lunchtime," he said. Sure. He could come up through the sewers, and leave the same way.

"Who was that boy I saw you with?" Dad asked when I walked inside. For a lot of people, this would be the prelude to either a joke or a paranoid demand that I account for my actions, about which I was probably lying.

Not in Dad's case. He meant the question, no more, no less. That didn't mean he wouldn't pry if he thought I was hiding something, though I was planning to tell him more or less the whole truth here. "His name's Angel," I said. "He just hired me."

"A little late, and an odd choice of location," he said.

"True," I said. "In short, he's a college student who tutors Buffy Summers, and he doesn't trust an old friend of hers who just showed up in Sunnydale."

"Does he have reason to be mistrustful?"

Of course he does. But I couldn't say that. "Probably not. It seems more like jealousy than anything else. But he doesn't seem delusional, and I've met him before and he seemed sane enough then, so I told him I'd do some quick research and let him know what I found. If I find nothing, I'll tell him so. If he's right – and by right I mean "something genuinely twisted," not something trivial – I'll tell him that too. What he does with the information then is up to him. I don't think this is prefatory to Angel beating the guy up. If that was what he wanted, he had plenty of time to do that already." Omitting, of course, that that would have led to a big fight with Buffy; but Dad knowing that would only complicate matters.

Dad homed in on one word: "Jealousy?"

"Maybe. Of course, that's from a ten-minute conversation. But it seemed more than a professional concern. He seems like a nice guy, though." A little late to the game, I realized that I certainly didn't want Dad calling Joyce Summers – I don't think they'd ever met – with concerns about her daughter's love life. For many people, this would have been nosiness. Not for Dad. No matter that Dad's not officially Sheriff any more, he still treats the town and the people in it as people he needs to take care of.

(I'd done some research, incidentally, on the town murder rate. It had dropped dramatically since Buffy came to town – but there had also been a drop when Keith Mars had been elected Sheriff. Not nearly as large of one, but statistically significant. It had gone back up by the same amount when Don Lamb took over.)

"If you get any hints otherwise –"

"I'll tell you. Or report him myself, depending on the situation."

"Don't put yourself in any danger, sweetie."

I said, "You know me."

"And that's why I'm reminding you."

I gave him a mock glare and headed to my room.

I could find nothing about Billy Fordham at the Hemery High website since the school year began -- and he'd been actively involved in half a dozen things the previous year. (They had an online yearbook, and their school paper was also online.) Absence of evidence, as they say, is not evidence of absence. This was a good start but wouldn't convince Buffy.

Information about the vampire-loving club, though, I couldn't trace using traditional methods.I had to use what I remembered from the episode, and go from there. It took me a couple of tries to get the name right. The Twilight Club? The Sundown Club?

The Sunset Club. That had to be the right name. (I'd be embarrassed as hell if it were a swing-club for senior citizens, though, in Sunnydale? Vampire buffet.) The address and phone number were in the phone book.

I ducked out of lunch early and headed for the library, narrowly avoiding Snyder along the way.

In avoiding Snyder, though, I wound up face to face with Logan. Which, let's face it, is still the frying pan compared to the fire, but either way, there was a chance of winding up burned.

"Mars," he said.

I raised my eyebrows. "You remember my name. Impressive."

"I've impressed Veronica Mars," he said. "Now my day is complete."

"Either you've had a busy few hours or your standards are low."

"Today it's low standards," Logan said. "I like to mix things up. You know, to keep things interesting."

"Ah. Another piece in the puzzle that is Logan Echolls."

He stepped closer to me. "We need to talk," he said.

"I thought that's what we were doing -- Logan! You've gone and developed mental telepathy, haven't you? I only think you're talking to me."

"Would that that were the case," he said with only mild annoyance. "No. This concerns the secret we share -- you, me, and Kelly."

That changed my mood in a hurry. "You don't want to do something about it, do you?"

"I leave the hero complexes to the heroes," he said.

I needed to get to the library. "Can we meet after school?"

"Sure. Parking lot. My car or yours?"

"Yours," I said. "My car kind of blends in. Your Tracker can be seen from orbit."

"It does have a hard time remaining inconspicuous, true," he said. "And bring Kelly. This concerns her too."

"I'm her friend, Logan, not her keeper."

Logan snorted. "Friend you may be, but I think she stays within a hundred feet of you of all times. It's like a reverse order of protection." He gave a mock salute and left.

I hurried on to the library.

Angel and Mr. Giles were both there. As I began to push open the door, I heard Angel say " . . . let her know I was here."

"It goes against the grain of our relationship," Giles said. "But as long as it does her no harm, I will refrain from telling her you were here." I finished opening the door. "And as for the rest, I shall remove myself from temptation by removing myself from the room." He nodded at me. "Miss Mars," he said, and disappeared into his office.

Angel came up to me. "What did you find?"

I told him everything I'd discovered about Billy Fordham, and about the Sunset Club. "This is the address," I said, handing him a sheet of paper.

"So I was right to be concerned," he said, as if confirming it for himself.

"I wouldn't call in the Air National Guard just yet," I said. "But he's almost certainly lying about the transfer. If I had to say anything, I'd say he dropped out of Hemery, though I couldn't tell you why.

If you want to check the school records, you'll need someone with more computer skills than I have -- no. Wait." I was being theatrical. I'd planned this all along, and I couldn't have made this call last night. "We need to use the library phone."

Angel went into the office. Thirty seconds later, a mildly disgruntled Giles came out saying, "If Snyder catches you, you snuck in while I was using the facilities."

"I'm shocked, shocked, to learn there is gambling going on here." My knowledge of classic cinema didn't impress him. He left the room.

That gave us about five minutes, and I didn't intend to waste any of them.

I took his office phone and called information, getting the number of the Hemery High main office. I then dialed that number and held the phone so that Angel could hear. "Hello?" I said. "Yes. This is Marsha Wingate, the secretary to Principal J. Wilhelm Snyder down here at Sunnydale High, and we were wondering about a student of yours who's transferred here. When are we going to receive his transcripts?"

The voice on the other end said, "Hold on a moment." Two minutes later she came back and said, "Sorry, Mrs. Wingate. We have no records of any of our students transferring to your school." After a second she added, "What is this student's name?"

"William Fordham."

She didn't hesitate. "Oh, no. Mr. Fordham's still registered here. He just hasn't been coming to classes for a couple of weeks."

"Really. Didn't you call in the truant officers?"

"We did. But his parents said that he was sick."

"Thank you," I said.

"Are you going to need those records?" the woman from Hemery High said. I told her no, we exchanged a few pleasantries, and I hung up. "Good enough?"

"Good enough," Angel said, reaching for his pocket. He pulled out a roll of '20s and handed me ten of them. "Thank you."

I gave him the paper with the address of The Sunset Club and said, "Anything else?"

"I think I can take it from here," he said. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." To make sure he didn't have to invent some reason to stay in the library, I said, "I have to get going. Class is about to start."

I left, thinking and hoping that everything else from Lie to Me would go more or less according to canon.

X X X X X

After school, Sheila and I met Logan at his car. "What is it?" Sheila asked.

"You said it wasn't a desire to play hero," I said.

"Right," Logan said. "Not that I wouldn't want to rush in if I saw someone being attacked by lunatics with funny faces. But I'd know that that would probably end up with me and them dead. I occasionally have quixotic instincts but I haven't yet reached the point where I'm actually attacking windmills."

"Though you've got a pretty good Rosinante," Sheila said, tapping the Tracker. At Logan's look of bewilderment, she said, "Told you. I read."

"Don Quixote?" Logan asked.

"The longer the book, the better," Sheila said quietly. "So. What about the whole thing's buggin' you?"

Logan said, "Everywhere I look, I'm seeing magic or vampires. That guy in the bad '80s get-up -- fashion disaster or vampire? Joe Miller looked hairy in gym; could he be some kind of werewolf? Is my father's success natural, or the result of some kind of spell?"

"No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American people," I said, quoting H. L. Mencken.

"You get my meaning," Logan said. "It's not like I'm panicking and jumping at shadows. But it occurs: Perhaps, if I knew more, I would be able to understand more, and wonder less."

"So you what? Want to set up a study group?"

After a period of silence, Logan said, "Well, I wouldn't want to call it that . . ."